boehner created in the '90s, a house banking scandal. he lost his career, put on trial, exonerated, but he spent the last 20 years unappreciated. and i think he deserves recognition, joe early. >> phyllis diller. >> they were key makers. >> and rose to fame in the same era, i am very sorry to see go whitney houston. we're going to be back with more of our last word holiday show. ♪ ♪ ♪ phyllis, phyll . >>> welcome back to "the last word," holiday party. our new category is the biggest surprise of 2012. karen finney, what was the biggest surprise of 2012. >> that we were able to call the election around 11:00. >> i actually thought it would happen, by the time we got to california, closing time we would know. >> i really thought it would be a much bigger mess, and i didn't think the president would be able to win without us having a debacle in florida, and thankfully we didn't. >> joy reed, what was the big surprise? >> the big surprise was that mitt romney chose paul ryan as his running mate. he is the right guy? but as a democrat,